US telecommunications company AT&T has been granted a patent for their “decentralized and distributed home subscriber server” device that uses the blockchain.

AT&T filed its first patent application two years ago on April 6, 2015. The company was awarded the patent on May 30, according to cryptocoinnews.com and records from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (available here)

What is a “home subscriber server”?

It is reportedly a master database that enables the delivery of IP media services on a network for home users. AT&T has revealed plans to create a decentralized home subscriber system in a peer to peer network of base station devices, which share a database on blockchain. Furthermore, the online media explained that in the event of a node outrage or a cyberattack faced by a node, the distributed home server system would not be impacted.

“As with the Bitcoin operation, although a compromised network node could attempt to corrupt the distributed database, this would not be possible unless a majority of the nodes were compromised. Moreover, in the event of a node (e.g. base station device) being down or overwhelmed by an overloading attack, the disclosed distributed secure home subscriber server system operation would be unaltered and only mobile devices under the coverage of a victim base station device would be affected.”, as the patent application elaborated.

The patent is part of AT&T`s efforts to explore the use of blockchain technology.